bradjock

It seems like we almost have to go for 2nd tier players based on our cap situation. Assuming we cut Peppers, the only starting defensive lineman we have signed is Steven Paea. He seemed to go games at a time without having his name called. We need a starting CB, MLB, and at least one safety. If we resigned or kept all our defensive players, we'd still need to draft all defense. While Angelo sucked at drafting, I will give him credit for paying players up front and leaving us in good cap shape. This year we blew our load on the Cutler deal. We don't want to end up like the Cowboys who restructured Tony Romo's deal so they are 25 million next year and they are still over the cap this year.

1. Depends: I know that's a cop-out answer but it's true. Who's available? How far we moving? We need to find an immediate defensive starter. There is no time for red-shirt seasons. 2. Fact: I say Melton only because we want to get younger and if healthy, Melton could be a long term solution. 3. Fiction: We demonstrated last year we prefer to carry 2 QB's. Sign a veteran on the cheap. Don't waste a pick on a guy who won't see the field for 3 years. 4. Fact: McClellen looks fast and athletic in open space. He's made to play linebacker. He will still having trouble shedding blocks, but so did Urlacher.

Rex or a player similar to Rex. Rex is an ideal fit as he's on his last leg in the NFL. He's experienced and hopefully motivated. Hell he made Bernard Berrian a multimillionaire. Imagine what he could do with Alshon, BM, and Marty-saurus-rex. I'm not arguing for Rex, just using him as an example. We could get him for the minimum and I'd sure as hell trust him in a pinch over any 4th round rookie. Josh McCown sucked his entire career until this year. Absolutely sucked. Guys just don't start getting better when they are 34 years old. That was Trestman, the system, and the talent around him. We are locked into Cutler for 3 more seasons. I don't give a damn about drafting a project.

Possibly. Although I'm wondering if this will be a year where teams go crazy in free agent spending. The Steelers & Browns used the transition tag on Jason Worilds guaranteeing him 9.7 million and Alex Mack for 10 million. Wow. WTF??? I don't understand why either team would spend that for a part time player and a center. Those both could be a fluke or it could be an indicator of things to come. And the Bears need to be damn careful about overspending. Some team might go crazy on paying for Bennett. It happens. Which might make us bring back Peppers, one way or another. I truly believe that right now there is a 50/50 chance Peppers is back next season.

Agree with Freeman not having his head in the game. Which brings us to what Trestman looks for: In McCown we had a guy on his last stint in the NFL. He was experienced, yet humbled. He accepted the fact that he was not their to replace Jay Cutler, he needed to work well alongside Jay Cutler. McCown understood the west coast, worked his ass off and did exactly what the coaches told him. In short, we need a washed up quarterback with a final chance a redemption. I wouldn't want him back because of his history, but Rex Grossman would be an ideal fit. Jordan Palmer has never had the talent or pedigree. You don't want to risk going into the season with any rookie as your #2 QB. Follow the format we did with McCown and find a veteran.

That's awesome. We need to get several guys like Hayden. A reliable veterans on the cheap who can produce when healthy. We're are going to need them as we rebuild the defense. You want to have a mixture of veterans with your rookies. Make it a true competition.

Any chance Shea will take over the Mike position? While it seems to be a lock that Shea will replace James Anderson at OLB, I see us having greater aspirations for him. When we drafted Shea, there was all kinds of talk that he was #54's eventual replacement. Like Shea, Urlacher also struggled with shedding blocks, particularly in his early years. Lance is a lock at WLB. I agree Green is a usable backup and ST's guy. How much time will Bostic take to develop? If you count Shea, in the last two years Emery has spent a #1, #2, and #4 on the LB position. And he has Lance Briggs. It'll be interesting.

How much will he get paid? Why did Cleveland cut him? They've got a great defense and tons of money.

Yep. He's cheap and we can cross that need off the list. What's weird is we have few needs on offense yet we keep resigning our offensive players. Meanwhile we need EVERYTHING on defense and there is very little movement there. This might be GREAT news. Seriously. We thought it would take 2-3 years to rebuild our offensive line and we did it in an offseason. We went from being the worst to near the best. It doesn't seem possible that in 2012 our o-line consisted of J Webb, Gabe Carimi, Chilo Rachal, Lance Louis, Edwin Williams, and Chris Spencer. Christ almighty that's a pitiful group. With Garza, those were our starters. On defense I'm thinking we are going to blow it up and see what happens. We can't get much worse. After the improvement on the o-line, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I've got to disagree with immediately bringing the eventual replacement. Why is there always such a push for this? Back in 2007 we were drafting losers like Michael Okwo as eventual replacements for Lance Briggs. Lance would have been a pro bowler this year had he not hurt his shoulder. Okwo likely has a job cleaning toilet bowls. Currently our o-line has a really nice mixture of two really young guys in Long and Mills, two guys in their prime in Slauson & Bushrod, and one really old guy. We need to make sure we have a competent back-up. Otherwise, we can draft or sign his replacement when we decide to part ways. That being said, his eventual replacement might be Matt Slauson and we could consider starting James Brown at guard. Just a thought. I really hope we bring back Ebon Britton. He was versatile and the offense didn't miss a beat when he played RT after Mills went down.

Yep. Although I have a feeling it will come down to the almighty dollar.

He's very talented and not an idiot. His issue is his injuries. He has a degenerative knee condition that ain't going to get better. He'd be worth a shot for the right price. With all our needs on the defensive line, I can't see us spending money on an elite safety or drafting one in the first round. Unlike most, I am optimistic that Conte can be good on a defense where the running-back doesn't consistently blow by the first and second levels untouched.

Agreed. With his measurables and what the Seahawks defense did to Peyton Manning, with no sure fire #1 QB, I think one or another Clowney is going #1. He's the clear cut #1 talent. People forget that one of the reasons the Redskin consider to be mediocre is that they usually trade away their draft. That's not a good habit. We are far more likely to trade down than up.

I'm good with that, but who are you wanting? We are 13 days away from free agency and there's really been nobody we've been rumored to be interested in signing. It's assumed Greg Hardy will get the tag. As for the rest, aside from being younger, I don't know how much of an upgrade they are over Julius Peppers. There's a whole lot of "meh" available. Not to mention, with the rising cap, more teams are going to have more money to spend. In short, teams will overspend for guys who aren't worth it.

How about having Wooton, Peppers, AND Ealy? I doubt that will happen, but we are so damn thin at all of our defensive positions, by draft time, we could have announced we will bring those to back to start and still take a DE at #14.

Damn, how could I forget about Olsen? Graham was more of a back-up this past year. Thanks for the Clutts reminder. It's still pretty pathetic how few ex Bears there are doing a damn thing in the league. Course there's always Kyle Orton . . . Getting back to players we want to bring back, I wonder how much we will consider durability as a factor?

The thing is, we can still sign a bunch of the old defensive players, keep Peppers, and still get younger on defense. All you have to do is 7 defensive players capable of making the team. We have so many fringe defensive players on this team. We let Zac Bowman go, he's so bad he gets cut from Minnesota, and with injuries he becomes a starting cornberback for us. Is Isaiah Frey any damn good? Don't even get me started with the d-line. It would be a mistake to completely go with the youth movement. We saw how good inexpensive veterans like James Anderson and DJ Williams were compared to second and 4th round picks Bostic & Greene. You want to have a combination of young and old so we are not in the position that our defense was in this past year.

Yep. Although, I never understood the Shea pick. As a defensive end, most agreed that at best, he'd be a 3rd down edge rusher like Mark Anderson or Osi Umeniorya. Like with Anderson and Osi, Shea would be a liability against the run. The problem is that for Anderson or Osi to be successful, there has to be some pressure from the interior line. Without Tommie Harris, there is no way Anderson registers 12 sacks. Anderson didn't shed blockers as much as he went around them. When Shea went around a blocker this year, the QB was standing unmoved in a nice clean pocket or he was able to run laterally away without the additional pressure. It was a pretty high pick for a long down DE. Especially when we were converting him from LB. Then we never gave him a chance to be successful and now we are moving him. I'm cautiously optimistic he could still be good.

Yeah, I try not to focus on the draft too much until after a few weeks into free agency. I'd love it if Ealy fell to us.

I didn't mean that Melton being the #3 DT is a bad thing. I agree with you in that if he can return to form, it would be one helluva a signing. We are desperate for help at DT, DE, and CB. Free agents near the top of those positions are Peanut, Melton, and possibly Peppers. Our defensive was horrible and we need to upgrade defensively. Yet we could easily spend a bunch of cap room on guys we already had to upgrade our defense. It's just strange. Maybe it's strange because when players leave the Bears, more often than not, they typically go away to die. We part ways with Urlacher, and he's out of the league. Which brought me to this: HOW MANY FORMER BEAR PLAYERS WERE STARTERS/SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTORS LAST SEASON: I'm struggling here. Chris Williams started most of the season at guard for a really bad Rams o-line. D-Manning started 6 games for the Texans before going out for the season with injury. Kicker Nick Novak was pretty damn good, but he was never on the Bears active roster. I think we have a former fullback who is good for another team but for some reason I can never remember the names of our fullbacks. While the majority of the Bears roster originated from different teams, how is it possible that there are no former Bear players doing a damn thing in the NFL. Am I wrong about this or am I forgetting players? (the simple answer is Jerry Angelo)

I don't know that we jumped at the guys we wanted to spend money on. Like you said, I'm sure the Bears have had some discussion about price range. We broke the bank on Cutler and Gould. Jennings and Slauson both admitted to not wanting to go through the free agent process with uncertainty. My guess is that we made offers Tillman, Melton, and other players, and the response was, "Maybe later." Last year, after free agency began, Melton quickly signed his franchise tendered when he realized the market for defensive tackles was bad. These guys could easily come back if the market isn't what they'd hoped.

With two first round picks, Emery reached for a guy based on his speed and then he reached for a guy based on his speed, size and length. I'd agree with the above comment that we should start looking at 2nd rounders. I think we take the defensive end with the best combination of speed, size and length.

Agreed. Except at this point I don't think it means much. We never heard anything about us negotiating with Cutler, Jennings, Robbie, or Slauson. When there is talks of negotiations, it generally means the two sides disagree. It doesn't mean we won't sign him. It just means he thinks there is a chance he can get a better offer.

The thing is, there are very few elite defensive players available. There are a few elite guys but the rest are simply good players wanting elite money. Pro football focus has Henry Melton ranked as the #3 available defensive tackle and Peanut as the 7th best CB available. If we dump Peppers, he'll be near the top free agent at defensive end. At the end of last season, we only had 2 playmakers on offensive and a horrible offensive line. This year some of the better players available on defense are our own guys. I see us supplementing our defensive with older players while rebuilding through the draft.

My guess is he'd still be out of our range. With our cap space, I see us doing a ton of bargain shopping. Last year we did pretty damn good with some of the cheap signings we made like Matt Slauson, James Anderson, and DJ Williams. My guess is we find a way to keep Julius Peppers. As bad as he was, he was by far our best defensive lineman. That being said, we've been somewhat spoiled as Bear fans by making a huge splash on opening day. We've done it 3 out of the last 4 years: 2013--Jermon Bushrod and Michael Bennett 2012--We traded for Brandon Marshall at the opening of free agency (not a free agent, but we absorbed his 27 million $$$ contract) 2011--the lock-out year. This was bad. We got a lot of bad players from Dallas. 2010--Julius Peppers Not to mention, in 2009, we waited until April 2nd and traded for Cutler. (I'll never forget I thought Boers & Bernstein were having a belated April Fool's joke. IMO, I think this will be one of those years where it's a week into free agency and we haven't done a damn thing.